David Keyes

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

A love of films. A love of the written word. What better way to combine them?
I started this little movie reviewing gig on the 'net back in 1998 when I was just 17. At the time, the idea wasn't exactly a developed one on my part (I never even fathomed the concept until it was suggested to me by a high school instructor), but once it began, it was as if I was physically incapable of stopping. For that year and the next, film criticism was life. On a personal level, it was also a visceral experience, something that I and I alone could do without having my work comprimised by some kind of looming superior (I guess school gives you that mentality naturally).
For a time following the whole K-12 thing (and even a bit into college), I wanted this to be a career. Unfortunately, time and dedication, especially in isolation, tends to build walls around your ego -- thus, I was put off by the impending notion that I couldn't have complete control over my own material in a paid profession, so the idea went from being a career goal to a recreational hobby rather quickly. Thankfully, I wasn't as defensive about my other Journalistic talents, so I didn't give up on the vocation entirely. I currently freelance for publications whose primary audiences are those that thrive on information-gathering, and the prospect of objective and thorough reporting is an art in itself.
But one doesn't write just for the sake of writing, either; it has to be something engaging on a personal level, otherwise your wasting your time. Though movie reviewing has taken a back-burner in recent years to other things, it has nonetheless lived on in some capacity -- and for the sake of staying up with the times, that simple old free Geocities site I opened in the summer of '98 was moved to its own fully-paid server in early 2004. Cinemaphile.org is the culmination of all that work, and I'm proud that I am able to keep up this little hobby in a way that doesn't seem easily disposable. I love the movies and I love writing about them, and I intend on keeping the hobby under my belt as long as people are still willing to hear what I have to say.

There is an undercurrent beneath the frames that goes to the bloody heart of the matter, giving a wondrous sense of dramatic desperation to each of the characters as they move through this macabre labyrinth. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

This is not a movie manufactured from within the conceit of aspiring filmmakers hoping to make a low-budget wave, either: what these people have created is a credible descent into the material. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

There is a skill working through the frames of director Ted Geoghegan's debut opus, providing us with enough allure and tension to more than make up for the maddening uncertainty. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

All the dramatic cues are there, and many of the faces convey an eagerness that is admirable, but every simpering scene of false sincerity moves to the rhythm of some shallow after-school special. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

Almost everyone involved here was working in the full scope of their abilities. Perhaps one day they can even collaborate on something with more than just a shoestring screenplay. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

A movie entirely without consequence, about people we don't care much for, a plot of impossible silliness, and situations that seem hauled through the grinder of exhausted mid-tempo farce. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

107 minutes of witless nonsense, populated by performers who would look more at home in after-school specials, and filmmakers who ought to have been left stranded on the unemployment line. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

The dinosaurs have ceased being sources of excitement and are now superficial showpieces in a plot that piles one ludicrous moment on top of another, without providing us much time to react or contemplate them. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

The movie throbs with a relentless underlying terror that is frequently mystifying, sometimes aggravating, and almost always poised to keep the mind engaged in disquieting wonder. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

Here is a movie so thoroughly realized, so utterly entrenched in the harrowing ordeals of its characters, that their struggles touch on the very nervous system of our need to endure. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

Hitchcock's film is distinctive, above all else, because it is the only one in his long catalogue without a scornful mask separating the obsessions from the vulnerabilities, and into the frames he pours the living essence of his timeless panache. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

Miller modulates the film from such a meticulous place that his fantasy develops with sincerity and humor, great underlying chemistry, and performances that inhabit the material rather than overplay it. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT

Yorgos Lanthimos has distanced himself from the mere notion of promising filmmakers and made "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," a movie so strikingly perceptive that it moves him into the company of greater, more assured voices in the medium. - Cinemaphile.orgEDIT